Serpent's Tooth. James Axler

years, a young warrior who fought alongside his father as a gunner on a jeep. He watched as the humans’ bullets tore into his father’s flesh, and his vengeful thirst had not been slaked in thirty years of bloodshed.

      That was decades ago, and since then, Durga had spread the influence of the Nagah dynasty throughout the region. Raids against human settlements produced results that impressed the queen, Matron Yun. Converts among the imprisoned slaves were passed through the cobra baths, solutions of nanomachines in saline that stripped the majority of their mammalian nature, all save a warm-blooded metabolism, and replaced it with the serpentine perfection that had been a gift from the dragon god Enki. Human cultists were readily accepted into the ranks, provided they survived the harrowing trek to the Kashmir across the radioactive wastelands, bandit-controlled territories and the ferocious predators of the wilderness. Unfortunately, few of these believers, now called pilgrims, even knew of the hidden Nagah empire. Even fewer had the endurance to survive such a murderous journey.

      Manticor’s father had been one such man. His mother was a convert from the enslaved humans captured by the grim Prince Durga, in the time before the prince’s rage consumed every waking moment. Technically, Manticor’s birth by two newbloods, or converts to Nagah form, and the fact that he was born a serpent, not needing the cobra baths, made him a trueblood. Unfortunately, Durga had long ago decreed that only the royal family could call themselves truebloods, as they could trace their lineage back to the age of the dragon kings. Manticor didn’t have the right to that title. The best that he could hope for was the mantle of pilgrim’s son.

      A cordon of guards entered the cavernous hall that Manticor had wandered into. A dozen pistol-equipped cobra men moved in unison, like a single entity. Manticor immediately recognized them as the ring of living armor that surrounded the queen matron as she moved among her citizens. The snake man dropped to one knee, lowering his head in deference to the grand matriarch. The phalanx of bodyguards halted in front of Manticor.

      “Manny, child, rise and gaze upon your queen,” Yun said.

      Had she been human, her age might have proved more readily apparent. Still, six decades had done little to dull the copper-and-black leopard pattern of her scales, and her golden eyes were as bright and fiery as freshly lit bonfires. The only sign of her advanced years was a looseness of her skin and a softening of the firmness of her once tight, perfect musculature. Her lips turned up in a smile matched by the warmth in her gaze as she extended a delicate hand to Manticor.

      “Matron,” Manticor announced, nodding as he bent and kissed the scaled wrist offered.

      “Manny, it’s good to see you in health. How does my daughter-to-be fare?” Yun asked.

      “She fares well,” Manticor replied, kicking himself for not being looser, more genial with the Nagah queen. The response stuck uncomfortably in his throat.

      “Ah, I take it my son is sampling the wine before he pays for the vinyard,” Matron Yun suggested. Sarcasm dripped from her lips.

      Manticor couldn’t suppress a flash of a grin at the queen’s crack. While Prince Durga’s decades of warfare had expanded the safe zone around the Nagah’s subterranean homelands, and had been responsible for tripling the population of the cobra folk, Yun had little patience for her son’s recent, violent activities. She was troubled by the wanton murder of travelers, as well as the growth of Durga’s increasingly militaristic personal guard. The rumors of his disrespectful relations with Hannah were particularly distressing. Hannah had survived far longer than her preceding suitors, young women who had died in accidents or quietly withdrew themselves from public life after a few meetings with the prince.

      It had become an increasing concern that the matron would never have a grandchild to carry on her bloodline.

      “I apologize, Matron Yun,” Manticor said, catching himself. He knew the queen’s feelings in the matter of her sole surviving child, but he didn’t want word passing through the ranks that he had been amused at Yun’s sharp criticism of Durga’s behavior.

      “My fault entirely,” Matron Yun replied, releasing Manticor from his guilt. She winked at him, indicating that her cadre of defenders would not betray any indiscretion between the two of them. “My son has just returned from an expedition along the old Pakistani border and he claimed that he has found several items of interest. Since you seem weighted by your thoughts, I wonder if you would enjoy a distraction with an old, wrinkled serpent hag.”

      “If there were a wrinkled hag present, I’d do so,” Manticor answered. “But for now, I am overjoyed to accompany a resplendent goddess of the blood.”

      Matron Yun laughed, resting her hand on Manticor’s shoulder. “If I were a few decades younger, Manticor, I’d believe you.”

      She offered her hand and the cobra warrior crooked his arm for her. Yun smiled appreciatively. “It might even be that you carry some of the spark of Garuda in you. You resemble my husband, and his genetic code runs through every pilgrim.”

      “I’m flattered, my queen,” Manticor replied. “But your son has likened the process to adding two drops of wine to sewage. It still remains vile waste, while adding two drops of sewage to a gallon of wine turns the whole to sewage.”

      “The Nagah, however, are neither waste runoff nor beverage,” Matron Yun responded. “My son, in his advancing years, seeks to overturn the teachings of both great Nagah and humans, including the lessons of those who despised the institutional bigotry of caste systems.”

      “And yet, we are still a monarchy,” Manticor countered.

      “With safeguards and the ability to impeach those of royal blood. A human said once that the tree of liberty, at times, must be watered with the blood of tyrants and free men alike.”

      “Thomas Jefferson,” Manticor said. “Words from nearly five hundred years ago.”

      “Truth does not cease to become truth because of age, my boy,” Yun chided him.

      The pair and the silent cordon of cobra escorts entered the alcove where Durga had deposited his discoveries. Off to one side of the underground hangar, the Nagah fleet of twentieth-century Black Hawk and Deathbird helicopters rested, a hundred aircraft only minutes from life should the children of Enki need them.

      The airfleet had been recovered thanks to raids on Indian government installations. The Battle of Sky Spear taught the Nagah the need for air power as they had suffered terrible losses, aside from Garuda himself, to the Magistrates’ assault helicopters. The Deathbirds and their utility transport counterparts were the backbone of a secure homeland, now.

      Quarantined and protected by Durga’s expeditionary troopers sat a strange and impressive object. It was sleek and silver, the size of the Black Hawk, and covered in burns and scars, as if it had been engulfed in lava.

      Matron Yun gasped in horrified recognition.

      “What is it?” Manticor asked.

      The queen’s lips drew into a tight line of concern. “The dragon kings. That is one of their craft, and if they have returned…”

      “Returned?” Manticor asked. “But Tiamat was struck from the skies.”

      Yun’s golden eyes flashed as she looked at the skimmer. “Death is no impediment to a god.”